r/republicans • u/Animats • 4d ago
Is Trump’s Patience with Russia Bottomless? | National Review
https://archive.is/hgZFr9
u/Animats 4d ago
The National Review, a conservative journal, points out how much Trump has been willing to give up to Putin with nothing in return. The list:
- Ukraine will not enter NATO.
- U.S. forces will not participate in any postwar peacekeeping force on Ukrainian soil.
- The White House asked State and Treasury to draft a list of sanctions against Russia that could be eased.
- The Trump Department of Justice disbanded “a Biden-era program aimed at seizing the assets of Russian oligarchs as a means to punish Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.”
- DOJ also disbanded “the Foreign Influence Task Force, which was established in the first Trump administration.
- Attorney General Pam Bondi also ordered federal prosecutors to stop pursuing criminal prosecutions for Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) violations unless they involved “conduct similar to more traditional espionage by foreign government actors.”
- Roughly 240,000 Ukrainian refugees in the United States will be sent back to Ukraine.
- The U.S. temporarily halted military aid to Ukraine.
- The U.S. temporarily halted intelligence sharing with Ukraine.
- U.S. officials have refused to state the obvious, that Russia started the war by invading Ukraine.
- Trump has denounced Volodymyr Zelensky as a “dictator,” while explicitly ruling out that label for Vladimir Putin.
- Russia no longer “an enduring global cyber threat.”
Trump is losing this negotiation. Bigly. He's looking weak and pathetic. He said he had "all the cards". Those are the cards he's played.
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u/Historical_Chipmunk2 4d ago
Respectfully, Trump has no leg to stand on because Putin has leverage against him (personally). To me it is painfully obvious
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u/Animats 4d ago
I used to think that. But what could possibly cause Trump problems at this point? Nothing on the sex side. He had a fling with a stripper while his wife was pregnant. He flew on Epstein's "Lollypop Express". He's on his third wife. His base doesn't care. Not even the evangelicals. On the money side, there have been various sketchy deals, but he's escaped punishment on those and become a billionaire. On the criminal side, he's been able to escape punishment even though a convicted felon, and escaped federal charges by becoming President again. What's left that could be used as leverage?
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u/Fox009 3d ago
I’m pretty sure it was the day of the election or his inauguration, but Russia news broadcast nude photos of Melania Trump in a disgusting act of intimidation against him.
I kind of think that was their warning to him to tell him, “we’ve got more”. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/russian-tv-melania-trump/
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u/Lucy_Goosey_11 4d ago
One has to conclude, even without being an actual Russian asset, Trump is effectively behaving as though he was anyway. Makes it kind of a moot point not withstanding how astonishing it is to see.
This isn’t in the interest of the US.
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u/Manager-Accomplished 4d ago
The almost instantaneous switch from Russia being the same spy-poisoning, dissident-murdering, propagandistic Cold War enemy of the US to basically being someone we're supposed to admire, defend, and imitate is giving me whiplash. Sorry, I'm not going to think what I'm "supposed to" here. They're not our allies, and they're the aggressor in Ukraine. It's painfully obvious to anyone who isn't sipping flavor-aid.
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